A Comparison of Effectiveness Ratings of Selected Principals and NASSP Assessment Center Ratings.

Yates, Beverly J.

The predictive validity of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) assessment center evaluation process for principals is compared with the perceived effectiveness of a selected population of principals. The NASSP assessment center approach includes a case study, a personal interview, two exercises, and a scholastic examination. The tasks are assigned to address problem analysis, judgment, organizational ability, decisiveness, leadership, sensitivity, stress tolerance, oral communication, written communication, personal motivation, range of interests, and educational values. The present correlational study used scores from 44 principals who had attended two midwestern assessment centers. To obtain ratings of principal effectiveness, the selected principals were then asked to complete the principal form of the Diagnostic Assessment of School and Principal Effectiveness (DSAPE). The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to measure the association between the sets of scores. With 312 correlations computed for the selected sets, it would be expected that chance alone would reveal 15 significant correlations at the 0.05 level. In this study, six correlations were judged to be significant at the 0.05 level, and none were judged to be significant at the 0.01 level. There seems to be no relation between DSAPE and NASSP assessment center scores. Ten tables and a 27-item list of references are included. (TJH)